Tennessee Jury Trials in Tort Cases by the Numbers
How many tort cases are tried in Tennessee in the last year? The Annual Report of the Tennessee Judiciary gives us the answer.
Here is the data for the year ended June 30, 2009:
Total jury trials in all tort cases: 260
Total number of medical malpractice trials: 26
Total jury trials in the larger counties:
Shelby: 48
Davidson: 65
Knox: 40
Hamilton: 23
Anderson: 8
Rutherford: 8
Sumner: 7
Washington: 6
Sullivan: 6
Hamblen: 6
Coffee: 5
Putnam: 4
Wilson: 4
The discussion of the "vanishing trial" is a reality.
There are about 50 more federal civil tort cases that are tried. And the data provided to AOC does not always match what happened. Sometimes a case is reported as a jury trial when it was disposed in some other way and vice-versa, there was a jury trial that was not properly disposed. [That then is probably close to a wash.]
The Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter chronicled 252 in 09, 270 in 08 and 285 in 07. Of those, 32 medical in 09, 37 in 08 and 25 in 07. [All jury verdicts -- no settlements.]